Rhetorical Analysis Essay

1. Rhetorical Analysis Essay 1986 N.S. Momaday and D. Brown passages

2. In the following passages, two Native American writers describe similar landscapes. Read the passages carefully. Then, in a well-organized essay, explain how the passages reveal the differences in the author’s purpose. (Refer to your passage) • N.S. Momaday • A single knoll rises out of the plain in Oklahoma, north and west of the Wichita Range. For my people, the Kiowas, it is an old landmark, and they gave it the name Rainy Mountain. The hardest weather in the world is there. • D. Brown • Out on the Plains later that summer it seemed that everything had turned bad. Day after day the sun baked the dry earth drier, the streams stopped running, great whirlwinds of grasshoppers were flung out the metallic sky to consume the parched grass.

3. Graphic Organizer-1986 Native American Landscape Prompt What ties these two passages together? SUBJECT-Big Idea What ties these two writers? Brown’s Tone/Purpose Momaday’s Tone/Purpose How are these passages different? Need two different adjectives and two different verbs What does the author sound like (how he feels) and why? Write TPT (Introduction)

4. TPT: adjective for Momaday’s tone and adjective for Brown’s tone + verb+ Big idea (abstract noun). Mythic and appalled, Native American writers Momaday and Brown deliver two differing views on the Native American experience. Momaday’s triumphant view of Rainy Mountain revels in individual isolation indifferent to mankind. However, Brown mourns the loss of a way of life stripped of purpose by a barren landscape. Ok, you got the TPT addressing the Big idea-now provide the thesis. (address the little question-How do the rhetorical devices reveal the authors’ purposes?

5. Most Prominent Rhetorical Devices • Momaday: • Diction (tone) • Imagery (modify) • Goes from descriptive to abstract • Repetition of one • Brown: • Diction (tone) • Imagery (modify) • Contrast How do these RD fulfill the author’s purpose?

6. Thesis addresses two author’s and their prominent rhetorical devices • Momaday’s affirmative diction and contrasting imagery revels in the seclusion of a scenery which promotes creation. • Brown’s forlorn diction and contrast mourns the loss of a people who have become forcibly detached from their land. Structure: Author’s feeling (tone) + purpose Can you combine these two thesis statements into one?

7. Instructions: Complete graphic organizer, after write TPT and Thesis and evaluate: • Evaluation: Do you have a TPT that addresses both authors’ tone with differing adjectives? • What ties these two works together? Find a verb and tie it to a big idea Thesis: Do you have a statement that addresses how author’s use rhetorical devices to reveal the differences of their purpose?

8. N.S. Momaday and D. Brown were two native Americans who have chosen to tell you the reader about their land. N.S. Momaday has written to show how beautiful his and almost sacred land is. Then D. Brown has written to show a vast death that has spread through his land and left it empty. Both authors use literary devices such as alliteration and imagery. N. S. Momaday chooses to use personification as to where D. Brown does not. Rewrite!

9. Remember your biggest challenge in this essay is how to tie all of the elements (rhetorical devices together towards the big idea). Biggest problem students have in this question is: How to control the argument and language.